About Us

Set up in 2015, Association for Decentralised Sanitation Infrastructure and Services (ADSIS) is a
platform for small and medium scale service providers engaged in design, manufacturing, installation,
operation and maintenance of Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) to come together and collectively
address the existing challenges through an institutionalized medium.

A first of its kind in India, ADSIS is currently operational at Bangalore, Karnataka. ADSIS
intends to be recognized as a credible, collective voice for liaising with government,
to enhance the service providers industry, provide education and information
to promote safety and health.

Initially the association shall be a state level unit which shall be federated at
the national level at an appropriate time as a way forward.

History

ADSIS aims to serve as a common platform that brings together small scale service providers
in decentralized wastewater treatment sector and address the concerns and challenges in the sector.
The idea behind forming this association came up after a study which was conducted to understand
the operation and maintenance of Decentralised Sanitation Infrastructure (DSI) systems in Bangalore.
During this study, it was found that DSIs have a lot of potential to complement Centralised
Treatment Systems. The study also identified major gaps in the Operations & Maintenance
division. Presently, there are more than 6000 DSIs in Bangalore, which are operated by
service providers to ensure that the wastewater is treated and safely disposed.

Challenges

A glimpse into existing challenges faced by
members:

Technical Challenges

Water for reuse: People generally are not
concerned about waste in the open and are unwilling to reuse treated
wastewater even for flushing purposes in apartments. Since no fines exist,
they are disinterested in installing STPs. Moreover, only limited amount of
treated water can be reused and the problem of letting out the rest of it
remains.

Also, design related issues such as
availability of space which poses the biggest constraint since the planning
of STPs is done at a stage when the foundation of the construction has
already been laid. There is a need to educating planners about the importance
of doing this at an earlier stage.

Operational Challenges

Generally there is a wide disinterest among
the operators even when they are trained. This disinterest comes from the
limited scope for career growth for the STP operators.
There is a need for dedicated and skilled
operators with a facility to upgrade their existing skills so that they can
improve their prospects.
Usually
only those in desperate need of money work in the sector as there are social
stigmas attached to it.
Services are
generally for a limited time without the need for daily maintenance but
the
employment
of operators is usually for the whole year which is costly and inefficient.

Financial concerns

Besides government regulations, the actual
implementation cost of STPs is a huge issue. The labour required for O&M
also creates challenges due to the competitive labour market in
Bangalore.

Legal concerns

The policy on zero-discharge: The
zero-discharge policy of the BWSSB through a notification dated March 3,
2016,has made it compulsory for any building consisting of more than 20
houses or apartments or flats to have its own modular sewage treatment plant
and dual plumbing lines to use this treated water for flushing the toilets
within their premises. However, this requires a lot of energy and the scope
of utilising treated wastewater within the premises is limited. This leaves
lot of excess treated wastewater which can be marketed to potential buyers
like builders. This will meet the requirements of the zero liquid discharge,
retrieve the cost of treating wastewater and also open new possibilities of
using treated wastewater.What is perhaps more important is to prevent
pollution and plan STPs for new foundations, rather than make the rules
stricter for existing infrastructure.

Objectives

Purpose

Apart from being a
networking platform, ADSIS intends to work together with its base to address
the challenges of both technical and commercial business generation. Our key
purpose is to serve as a collaborative authority within the sanitation industry
in establishing and evolving best practices. The focus is therefore not just on
adopting a collaborative approach, knowledge sharing or advocacy but
rather on resolving issues pertaining to business operations – consulting with
small scale players as and when required becomes an add on service rendered.

The purpose of this
Association is to facilitate the sharing of experiences and learnings amongst
DSI service providers, enable collective action and collectively advocate for
policy changes; with the longer term goal of creating awareness amongst players
and creating a stable business environment for existing players and new comers.
Sculpting joint strategies for the promotion of decentralised sanitation
services across cities and towns is also core to our vision as new entrants
into the industry are affected because of a lack of such advocacy initiatives.